CHAPTER XXIII.

WRECKED AT THE DOOR OF HOPE.

What of the _Regent_ and the little company of mariners who had set sail with such glowing hopes from the port of Valencia?

The storm that had driven the three boys away from the coral reef showed no mercy to the brig. She was torn from her moorings without a minute’s warning.

Until that moment Captain Eccles and Admiral Semmes had waited, with ever-increasing fear, for the return of the yawl and the three boys. Captain Eccles reproached himself bitterly for having yielded to the wishes of the lads and the advice of the admiral and Dartmoor.

“Oh, why did I not stick to my own judgment,” he raved, “and never let them go ashore?”

He forgot his own danger, and was on the point of putting out in a boat, with some sailors, to go to the aid of the young adventurers, when the tempest swept the _Regent_ from her moorings.

And even then Captain Eccles implored Dartmoor to try to keep the ship near the reef and make an effort to rescue the boys. But this was impossible.

When a sailor said he had seen the yawl outside the reef Eccles knew that his youthful charges were adrift and at the mercy of the waves.

That night the _Regent_--like the small boat that held Nick, Frank, and Will--was the plaything of the tempest. Captain Dartmoor did not sleep, and it required every effort of the crew to keep the _Regent_ from foundering. Next day when, during a lull in the storm, it was possible to make an examination of the ship, she was found to be in a very bad condition. She had sprung a leak, and some of the crew were told off to man the pumps. In this way they were able to keep her afloat.

Eccles and Semmes scanned the sea continuously in the hope of discerning some trace of the yawl, but the quest proved a fruitless one.

“I wonder if it is possible that the boys managed to get back inside the reef,” said Captain Eccles, clutching at the only straw of hope.

Admiral Semmes shook his head.

“You don’t think so, I see,” Eccles said sadly.

“No, my dear friend; I fear the boys are lost.”

On the second day, as the sun sank toward the horizon’s edge, the storm resumed its old fury, and by the time darkness had set in it was even fiercer than the night before. But just before night fell the lookout had reported a low line of black on the weather quarter that looked like the beach of an island.

Darkness, however, prevented any definite progress in its direction, and efforts were given only to carrying the ship safely through the night. To this end, the first and most important service, the pumps were kept working, so that the hold might not fill with water.

Thus the _Regent_ drifted on, hour after hour. It was not until midnight that anything happened to break the monotony of the dreary experience. Then a double alarm brought to the deck every man not at the pumps.

“Breakers ahead!” was the first alarm that came from the lookout stationed aloft.

“Where away?”

“On the windward quarter.”

Scarcely had his words died out when the watcher saw something to make him sound a second alarm:

“A light!”

There was no need to ask where, for coming out of the mist, a few points off their starboard bow, the schooner’s folk saw the binnacle lamp of a big steamship.

A second or two and the great steel prow was crashing into the _Regent_.

Making a diagonal slash through the schooner from port to starboard, she carried away the sailing vessel’s bowsprit and left her with a gap forward.

Then the destroyer, whirled on by the tempest, disappeared in the darkness.

It is impossible to realize how quickly this and subsequent events occurred. In ten minutes from the moment the _Regent_ was struck she had sunk, and her crew were in the lifeboats beating against the waves, bent on seeking a landing on the shore which, the breakers told them, was not far away.

And they were successful in making a landing. But upon what a shore, and amid what surroundings!

The morning light told them the completeness of their disaster. They were on a desert island, without food, and all their belongings lost.

In the first gray of the morning a scene inexpressibly dreary met their eyes. The island, at the place where they had landed, was rock-bound, with a very narrow strip of beach, but for which their boats must have been dashed to pieces.

Beyond the island, at the south, stretched what seemed to be an interminable swamp.

There was no sign of the _Regent_. No wreckage from her had been driven ashore. The only reminders of the schooner on which they had set forth with such glowing hopes were the two lifeboats.

The storm had subsided.

Of the three leaders in the enterprise, Captain Eccles seemed most distressed by the disastrous turn of events.

“By Heaven, mates!” he exclaimed. “It is the doom of all our hopes.”

“We are alive, aren’t we?” said Captain Dartmoor, in an effort to cheer him up.

“Yes; but our chance of getting the treasure--that is dead, Jack. And it seemed almost in our hands two days ago.”

“It’s hard luck, Eck,” agreed Dartmoor; “but so long as there is life there is hope.”

“It’s fine of you to speak so, especially to me,” returned Eccles gratefully.

“Why not to you as well as anybody else, Eck?”

“Have I not lured you into losing your ship?”

Dartmoor laughed.

“Why, Jack,” he said, “when I came with you I took a chance. The sea has its risk--if it isn’t one thing it’s another.”

“That’s all right, and good of you; but----”

“Oh, come, old friend. We are in trouble. It’s up to us to get busy, and find a way out of it. No time like the present, so let’s begin at once.”

Suiting the action to the word, he went over to where the crew were sitting and told them to man the boats.

“Where are you going?” asked Admiral Semmes.

“To explore the island.”

“A good idea. It all can’t be like this.”

“That’s what I think.”

Dartmoor and a group of the men got in one boat. Captain Eccles, Admiral Semmes, and the rest of the sailors entered the other. They set their course for a promontory that reached from the island’s northern end.

Although the men were hungry and weary, they bent to the oars with a will, for their only chance of relief lay in going somewhere, doing something.

They rounded the high point, and were delighted at the prospect that unfolded to their view. Beyond the swamp, at this side, stretched an expanse of rich vegetation, its green showing bright in the sunlight, along with flowers of brilliant hue.

“Admiral, admiral! Look!” cried Captain Eccles, pointing toward the charming scene.

“Ah, yes; it is beautiful,” said the admiral.

“But it is more than beautiful!” exclaimed Eccles, in excitement. “It is success!”

“Success! What do you mean?”

“This is our destination.”

The admiral looked at him, fearful that disaster had robbed poor Eccles of his reason.

“Our destination?” the admiral repeated.

“Yes. See the line of palms over there. That--that is Treasure Island.”